LEWISBURG — It was a bittersweet farewell swim for the Phoenixville girls, the area’s lone AA girls qualifiers, as they placed second in the 200 medley relay with a team record 1:51.18 in the night consolation finals — with Erin McElwee, Devonne Moore, Shawna Moore and Eileen Butler — on Day 1 of the PIAA Class championships at Bucknell University.

McElwee, Devonne Moore and Butler are seniors, and have been swimming together since they were splashing around the Phoenixville YMCA and neighborhood pools in elementary school. After four years on the high school team, this was their final relay.

“I’ve been swimming with these girls since I was 10 years old,” said the teary-eyed McElwee, the relay’s leadoff swimmer. “We’re all really good friends. And it’s really hard, bittersweet because we have all gone through it together for so many years. No one knows how hard we all really work. And now our last time together.

“It’s sad, but it’s also really exciting to reflect on all that we have done. And to set a new record again in our last swim was great.”

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Devonne Moore echoed those sentiments.

“I’m not crying — yet, but it will hit me,” Devonne Moore said. “It’s definitely crazy, we’ve been swimming together since we were like 8 or 9. We’ve been through a lot together. Most people don’t go through what we’ve gone through together. And it’s definitely going to be weird without it the next year.

“But it’s exciting having a close race, finishing with your best time. It’s definitely hard in swimming when you swim your last race and it’s not your best race. This was. And it’s a great feeling to finish it all with that race.”

McElwee and Devonne Moore will swim again individually today — McElwee in the backstroke and Moore in the breaststroke.

For Butler it was definitely her last race.

“For me it’s even more bittersweet because this is my absolute last swim of my high school career,” Butler said. “The other two still have club nationals in April and Shawna has another year to go. For me, this is it. I’m done swimming forever. It’s hard. I spent nine years of my life on this and suddenly it’s done. We’ve gone through so much together. I don’t have any sisters, but these girls come as close as you can get to sisters.”

But when Butler hit the water to swim that anchor leg, all that went through her mind was, “Go fast.”

“That swim is just a blur,” she said. “I remember going into the wall, breathing to one side and seeing the girls next to us. That’s what I remember of that race. But we went out with a bang. Got a new record that will hopefully stand for years to come.”

“It’s just been absolutely amazing to actually swim with these girls,” Shawna Moore said. “I’ve been swimming with these girls on the same relays since I was really young. Growing up, these were the girls I looked really up to, the girls you would always watch in practice and want to be the be just like them. Getting older and older, I had more and more opportunities to swim with them.

“It’s the last day to swim with my sister. And, honestly, all three of them are like sisters. It’s just been a great opportunity and really and honor to spend these last three years together. I’ll miss them next year more than anything.”

Phoenixville head coach Dan Weinstein may be in his first year as head coach, but he served as a Phantoms assistant for several years. And this is the third year these Phantoms girls have advanced either to the finals or consolation finals in the medley relay.

“I prefer not to think about how it is going to be without the three seniors,” Weinstein said. “I remember when they were freshmen and how the then-head coach (Ty Bailey) and I always thought we have these girls for four years and how much they would accomplish. To see it come to fruition like this is very special.

“To send this relay to states for three years in a row, for a small AA school like us, they really put Phoenixville on the map. When you look at the names from schools across the state you recognize some. And people around the state will remember Phoenixville because of what these four girls accomplished.”